


A Dive into the Cold

by friendlypotato



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Prison, Eventual Smut, Fluff, M/M, but you know these boys are pretty angsty, i´m sorry i really can't resist using a sarcastic tone at least half of the time, so maybe a little angst, there's also crack, there's not going to be a lot of angst because i just don't really like it, this Will is some sassy bitch sometimes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-21
Updated: 2019-06-30
Packaged: 2020-03-09 02:53:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18908053
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/friendlypotato/pseuds/friendlypotato
Summary: When Will Graham was sentenced to 20 years in the most secure prison in the entire US, he felt sure he'd never taste proper whiskey again, let alone meet another non-guard dog. But when his cellmate turns out to be a good bit more interesting then he expected to ever find anyone to be, he thinks that might not be the worst thing in the world. Even better yet, turns out his new acquaintance has a plan...





	1. Rendezvous

**Author's Note:**

> Sooo yeah this is an Alcatraz prison break AU, so pretty familiar story, and if you were wondering, I definitely came up with it after hours of watching Buzzfeed Unsolved- so that's fun. I only have the one chapter so far but I do have the rest of the story planned out so it is only a matter of time before it gets finished, though I'm really not the kind of person to be able to update reliably and systematically so you might have to be a little patient. English isn't my first language so if you see any grotesque mistakes please let me know, but please excuse my British spelling, we get taught Cambridge English in school here, and it kind of stuck around. Any feedback whatsoever is of course appreciated! Hope you enjoy < 3

The sensation of the sturdy material of the monstrously bright orange jumpsuit under his fingertips is what shakes Will out of his thoughts, which were far away, by streaming water, cool sheets, and warm dogs. Thoughts that are everything this place is not; comfortable, peaceful. Beautiful.

Well, the latter might actually be somewhat true for this place, the location of the prison is actually quite remarkable. In fact, there is even streaming water. A whole lot of it actually, because yes, this prison, renowned nationwide for its absolute isolation, is built on what must be the tiniest imaginable island: the fort-like building only allowing a few feet of shrubbery beside it, before the land plunges into a cold, wild, merciless sea. 

Alcatraz Prison. For a moment, Will is thrown once again into a gut-wrenching feeling of homesickness. How the fuck did he manage to go from ‘admittedly lonely but really quite content FBI teacher with a nice house and some dogs’ to ‘inmate of one of the most high-profile prisons of the country’? Well- he knew how, but still. 

“Come on, move it!” At the shout, the soon-to-be inmates start shuffling further into the belly of the impenetrable building. 

“Sit!” The line comes to a halt again, and the group of roughly thirty men lower themselves onto the metal bench, trying not to get tangled in the chain attaching their right ankle to their neighbour’s. A man in his late forties walks in, slowly and stately, hands clasped behind his back. Clad in a dark suit with a dark shirt and a dark tie, face in what looks like a permanent frown, the large man looks carefully at each face in the small crowd of convicts. Will feels his gaze upon him, knows the guy recognises his face, and must be thinking something along the lines of a guy like that? Such a young face, pretty even. And an FBI agent. Could he really have done that? Will opts against meeting his eyes in favour of inspecting the grubby concrete floor.

“My name is Jack Crawford. You are now officially in my house. My house means my rules, and you will all play by them nicely, or you will come to regret it.” As Crawford starts summing up the list of rules about behaviour and conduct, Will closes his eyes and lets water rush through his mind. Wading through the creek near his house in Wolf Trap, he lets himself take a few deep breaths of real oxygen, untainted by the mouldy smell of concrete heavily damaged by the fifty years of being four feet away from a rather wild spirited body of salt water. 

In a way, the memory of Wolf Trap itself is tainted now, a place where darkness is swirling around in the tranquil bubble of his mind like an inkspill. There lurks something there, a feral instinct buried, surfacing. It should scare him. It should disgust him, he should think it hideous, but in truth, he feels at home.

“...with Castiglioni, in cell 305. William Graham, you’re in with Lecter, in cell 306....” After Crawford is done droning through placement, the group is on its feet again and they move slowly through damp halls until they reach a broad hallway where natural light streams in from tiny windows in the ceiling. Three floors of cell blocks line each side. There they are separated per cell block, and Will, together with four other guys are ushered up three flights of clangy metal stairs. The chain make it impossible to ascend gracefully and it takes Will everything not to trip, having to carefully time his steps with the guy in front of him until they reach the top floor. Once, the guy behind him stumbles, the chain going taut, and Will almost goes down, but at the last moment he manages to grasp the unsteady railing and, sadly, the jumpsuit of the guy in front of him.

“NO TOUCHING,” barks the guard behind them.

“Shit man, sorry,” mumbles Will, trying to sound both genuinely regretful as well as like he wasn’t some meek little thing that could be walked all over. Having this face in jail would be bad enough. 

“‘S alright mate,” mutters the guy. Without another word they finally reach the top floor. It’s rather dimly lit, the natural light from the roof not quite reaching the cells so that the only sources of light are some archaic looking fluorescent tubes on the ceiling of the corridor. 

They come to a halt at the second cell, and the guy behind Will is unshackled and led into the small space. They move on for a bit, and then Will is released and led into the fifth cell. The door slams shut; Will is officially behind bars. He scoffs and shakes his head a little at the thought, but truly, he doesn’t feel all that out of place. Hasn’t he always felt kind of trapped? Well, not always. Not that night in Wolf Trap, when the stream ran thick and scarlet. 

Filing that thought away carefully, Will forces his eyes to adjust to the shadowy cell. They took his glasses from him, so it takes a few seconds for his eyes to accommodate. It’s small, really small. There’s a bunk bed on the left wall. The lower bed looks weirdly nice, even though the pillow looks thin, the linen coarse and the blanket scratchy, it has been made so neatly and with so much care, that it somehow manages to look inviting. The top bed is stripped of sheets, the linen and blanket on a stack on top of the pillow. That’ll be his then.

The other objects in the room are a small writing desk and chair in the right corner, on the desk are about eight books, a small stack of technical engineering magazines and another small stack of handwritten letters, and two felt tips, and a sink and metal toilet against the back wall. His cell mate’s not here yet, so he assumes the inmates are still doing whatever manual labour they were assigned.

He decides to make his bed. His cellie is obviously a neat-freak, judging from the pristine floor and complete absence of an unpleasant smell, not to mention the freakishly appealing bed, so he takes off his step-in shoes before climbing the bed. He does not manage to get the sheets to look quite as nice, not even at his third try, and there are boundaries to his willingness to appease a man he has never met before and who is really quite likely to be a psychopathic serial killer, and not his new BFF, so he flops down onto the bed and crosses his hands over his chest, letting his eyes flutter close as he wades off into his stream.

..  
…..and there, surrounded by his dogs, laying on the ground, working on a motor, he felt at peace, and his mind layed itself to rest, unfurling his good memories like a warm blanket: bringing Buster home for the first time, sitting with Bev, nothing needing to be said but being able to talk for hours on end over a lot of whiskey and cheap takeout, the quiet structure of taking apart and fixing a boat motor, the shattering glass as the window breaks and a dark figure leaps forward…. There is a presence in the room. Something dark, something feral. It’s not quite right. It’s not quite home. Will opens eyes, and he’s back in Alcatraz, back in his cell, laying on his hard mattress.

At the tiny desk sits a man. He’s writing something down with one of the felt tips on a thin piece of paper. The man is quite tall and muscular, and is sitting remarkably graceful and straight in the cramped high school style chair. He was right about the neat-freak thing then. He notices the man gives no reaction at all when he turns in the bed and it creaks, no stretch of muscle, no quiver of ear, so the man must have known he hadn’t been sleeping, though he had also known Will hadn’t noticed him come in, because he would likely have found ignoring him rude, and Will was quite certain the man would have already be giving him shit if he thought Will was being rude.

Will sighs briefly internally, and climbs down from the top bunk, silently praying this man was not an abusive asshole with a taste for babyfaced men, ‘cause then he’d be screwed. Quite literally, ha ha. Not funny, Graham, he reprimands himself.

The man puts the cap back onto the felt tip. He rises from the desk, and turns around to face Will. Dark maroon eyes meets Will’s, and for a moment Will can’t help but be enthralled, meek in the gaze of the predator. Only for a millisecond though, before Will remembers he isn’t going to assert ANY dominance looking like an innocent little lamb ready for slaughter. He frowns and looks at the bridge of the man’s nose in order to avoid direct eye contact and in an attempt to gather up some sort of tough-guy energy. The miniscule crinkles that form around the man’s eyes imply that he had not been fooled for a second.

“Dr. Hannibal Lecter,” he states, and extends his hand to Will. He has a rich, deep voice, with a slight european sounding accent. Will is still avoiding eye contact, but he can very well sense Lecter’s scrutiny. Unable to stop himself from flushing very slightly, he takes his hand in a grip that he tried very hard not to make pitifully weak, nor aggressively firm. Lecter’s hand is warm and dry, and he can imagine him doing stuff with it like, you know, writing, playing piano or perhaps harpsichord, strangling a man, or maybe his hand wrapped around- yeah no okay that’s enough of that. He flushes again, this time definitely noticeably, and he quickly withdraws his hand.

“Will Graham. Yeah uhh, just call me Will.”

“Very well,” Lecter responds. Will meets his eyes, and Lecter lets the briefest tug of muscle pass over his face, barely hinting at a smile. He turns back around and sits down at the desk again.  
“I expect you to keep yourself and your bed clean. I hope you’ll be able to remember that I will not tolerate rude behaviour. My previous roommates all had some trouble remembering. But you seem like a clever boy. I think we’ll get along quite well.”

Will stares at the back of his head. “R-right-”, he mutters, and climbs back up to sit on his bed.

After several minutes of silence, he says: “I’m twenty-nine years old, you know.” All he hears from below was a soft huff of breath. Almost, but not quite, a snort.

..  
While no more was exchanged between the two, Will Graham doesn’t sleep for a long time after that. Playing through his head is the short exchange between him and Lecter. It isn’t that anything particularly interesting had happened, but talking to Lecter felt like taking a nice swim in a lovely little lake, when suddenly the water grows icy cold and suddenly you know the bottom of the body of water has plunged down many metres deeper than you thought, and you can’t possibly tell what lurks in the darkness underneath.

It might just be his restless mind, his overactive imagination, feeding him the general air of darkness in the prison, and he just happened to have focused that on Lecter. But deep down he knows he’d felt a spark of recognition when he had finally looked into Lecter’s eyes, and found a deep dark black, a black he only knew from his memories of Wolf Trap, quite like blood in the moonlight.

He tries to keep his breathing as silent as possible, hoping the man on the bunk below him wouldn’t be able to tell he was awake, and then feels silly, since the man is really very likely to be asleep himself. He listens for Lecter’s breathing then, but can’t make out a sound. It is then that from the cell next to him a subdued sniffling starts up, and a few minutes later that someone further down the hallway starts full-on wailing. 

It takes two more hours for Will to fall into a short, restless sleep, in which he doesn’t dream at all.


	2. Le début du jeu

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Will starts work, and psychoanalyses Hannibal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mostly the set ups for plot for now...   
> Note on the period: Alcatraz closed in the early sixties, so realistically this should take place in like '61, '62, but I'm not paying very close mind to it, that's just an indication. I also did a bunch of research on Alcatraz prison rules and...lemme tell you there were a lot and I'm obeying only 30% of them because that just suits me better lmao.  
> Hope you enjoy this chapter!

Will slumps down at the first free table he sees. He glances around the cafeteria briefly, noting Lecter, sitting a few tables to his right, with two other guys. They don’t seem to be in conversation, they’re just quite peacefully yet somehow mildly aggressively sitting together, shoveling the weird grey stew that is supposed to resemble breakfast into their mouths. Will averts his eyes. Lecter didn’t exactly tell him not to sit with him, but when they had left the cell together after getting called to breakfast, he had shot him a pointed look and uttered a polite ‘au revoir’, which was as overt a dismissal as polite interaction dictates. 

The table sways a little when a guy somewhat clumsily climbs onto the bench opposite Will. Will glances up briefly, before letting settle his eyes once more onto whatever it is that they’re calling food. (Seriously, is it stew? Porridge? Vegetable soup, overnight oats? He really couldn’t say, the taste didn’t give anything away anyway.) 

It’s the same guy whose jumpsuit saved him from a certain death by falling down those stupid stairs. A guy who is now smiling at him bashfully, probably kinda embarrassed that his limbs are slightly reluctant to cooperate, like those of an awkward teen who has just had another growth spurt. Will guesses he must be round the same age as him.

“Hey man,” the guy says , by way of greeting. Will looks up again and nods shortly, not unkindly. “Gotta say, this place is exactly what I expected.” Will smiles at that, shaking his head slightly. “Really? Cuz’ I heard a rumour, people saying that all the money that comes into this place the prisoners must get fed steak with each meal and I ain’t seen none of that so far.” 

The man huffs out a chuckle, “Yeah no, none of that. You settling in okay so far?”

“Yeah sure, it is what it isn’t it.”

“Sure is. My uh, my roommate seems like a nice enough guy. Strangely chipper, for someone in here, but well, I’d been kinda worried I’d get stuck with someone you know, aggressive or somethin’.”

Will hums noncommittally at that, and a silence falls, but isn’t exactly uncomfortable. He’s starting to sink away into his thoughts again, hearing the gentle rush of fresh water in his mind, with the occasional splotch of the line of a rod hitting the water in a neatly controlled arc. On another level of consciousness, he lets his eyes slide past Lecter’s table again, thinking vaguely that the man looks out of place, somehow. 

Something about his posture, his stoicism.. Dignified, is what it is. In a place designed to completely bulldoze over any man’s smallest shred of dignity, this man is sitting graceful, imposing, and dignified, despite the fact that he’s in the same washed out jumpsuit, eating the same grey goop with the same plastic spoon as everyone else.

Will startles harshly out of his thoughts when a loud beep announces the end of breakfast. This is accompanied by several guards shouting quite loudly at once, which makes it rather difficult to understand them, but Will manages to get the gist of it: they’re to go to their sites of labour, and the newbies stay sitting. 

Will throws a last glance to Hannibal, who is walking away, muttering something to one of the guys he’d been sitting with. Suddenly he tilts his head towards Will and winks. Will averts his eyes like his life depends on it, and can feel the tips of his ears burning bright red. When he dares to look up again, the doctor is long gone.

Meanwhile, there’s someone shouting at them again. It’s one of the guards, who seems to be in charge of yelling at new inmates for now. They haven’t seen the warden again. This guard, Chilton or something, walks with the air and arrogance of an aristocrat and the grace of an ostrich, and Will takes an immediate immense disliking to the man.

Will really has not registered a word of what words have been thrown at them so far, so it takes him a second to catch on. It sounds like they’re getting assigned tasks. There doesn’t seem to be a particular reasoning behind whom gets assigned where, but they’re warned firmly off “trying shit”, in danger of losing a coveted labour spot. It does not sound like there is a reward system in place for specifically good behaviour, but, Will reasons, maybe this guy just isn’t telling them about it, in order to maintain his air of complete despicableness and unlikeability. 

The laundry crew leaves first, leaving about half of the inmates. The next group head off to cell maintenance, and another to the kitchens. Then finally Will gets called up, together with the guy who’d sat with him, Zeller his name was, apparently, to go work in the prison shop.

Will honestly couldn’t be more delighted. This was the sort of job he’d been under the impression you’d only get after a good two years of good behaviour. Actually, that was probably true, but that Chilton just seemed to have his head so far up his ass he couldn’t care less about protocol. Whatever the reason, it works for Will, because fixing boat motors was something Will can do.

Zeller seems pleased too, and shoots a grin at Will. Hoisting themselves off to stand behind the guard they’d been told would bring them to the shop, Zeller started rambling about his job on the outside or something. 

Will couldn’t really care less but he enjoyed the friendly interaction and finds himself chuckling every now and then at his sharp tongue and snarky quips. He really seems like an okay guy, a bit eager to make friends, but genuine, and young, uncharacteristic for the type of person that ended up in here, regardless of age. Will hopes he’ll stay that way.

..  
After eight hours of nearly uninterrupted work they are urged back into their cells. There had been a half hour lunch, but they only had yard privileges on weekends and holidays, so besides that, only the five two-minute smoke breaks they were permitted. Two minutes is really not a lot of time, and Will could only manage to get through half a cigarette each time, much to Zeller’s good-natured amusement.

Will hadn’t minded much. Lost in the logical, practical task of re-assembling engines, ventilators and mechanical equipment, the day had passed surprisingly fast.

In his cell, Lecter is already there, sitting on his bed, a cigarette between his lips. Unsure of how to proceed, Will decides to stay standing where he is, and utters, in what he hopes is a melodious and self-assured tone, but probably resembles more closely the whisper of a blushing virgin bride, “Good afternoon, doctor Lecter,”

The man takes the cigarette between his fingers, and looks up at Will, displaying no emotion but the slightest crinkle at his eyes. He lets the smoke unfurl gracefully from his lips. 

“Hello, Will.” For a reason he can’t quite grasp, Will feels his cheeks go warmer once again. What the fuck is the MATTER with me, Will scolds himself. A tiny tick of muscle at the corner of Lecter’s mouth implies he didn’t miss it either. Then he returns to the book that lays open in his lap.

Will doesn’t know what to do with himself for a second but ultimately decides that if he sits on his bed, Lecter can’t see him possibly looking like an idiot so he tries to scale the bunk bed looking as non-idiotically as possible ( so, quite idiotically). Once there, he isn’t sure what to do, so he lights a cigarette too and tries for what feels like a very long time to not think of anything at all.

After some time, Lecter gets up to sit behind the desk. He starts shuffling the stack of letters on it, and is about to start reading one, when he seems to change his mind, and he turns to Will. 

Will was just really getting into the act of staring at the back of the other man’s head by proxy of an actual activity, so the movement startles him, but he manages to recover quickly and unnoticeably, he hopes. That knowing smirk flickers over Lecter’s face again, but Will is seventy percent certain at this point that he actually doesn’t know shit, and just smirks that smirk in the hopes of others thinking embarrassing things.

“What labour did you get assigned?” 

It’s such a startlingly normal question that it takes Will a second to formulate a response. Lecter’s eyebrow hitches up a millimetre or two.

“Uh, I got assigned shop?” There’s a gleam in Lecter’s eyes that almost seems to imply he’s actually very satisfied with this for some unattainable reason.

“Ah, perfect.” He rewards Will with a smile that doesn’t reach his lips, but it crinkles his eyes and is so startlingly genuine that Will feels his heart skip a beat. He can’t find a reason in the world why Lecter would be so invested in his daily labour related activities, but can’t help but feel pleased anyway.

“Yeah, uh, it’s perfect really, my father was a mechanic, I grew up on boat yards, I can pretty much.. I mean it’s good to be able to do something I’m good at in here.”

“I imagine so.” Lecter’s tone is the kind that implies that their interaction is over, but he doesn’t turn around yet. Instead he stands, staring into Will’s eyes with a faint smirk on his lips. 

Will is grappling around his brain to try and come up with something intelligent or at the very least intelligible to say, but to no avail, and is therefore quite relieved when Lecter turns around once more to write his letters. Will leans back on the bed and sinks into his mind where his thoughts are swirling around like a greatly confused maelstrom. 

..  
There was something about the way Lecter acted. To someone else, it wouldn’t have stood out. Actually, that might be why it stands out to Will at all. Hannibal Lecter interacted seemingly naturally, gracefully, unobtrusively. He didn’t stand out from a crowd in any way other than his confident, graceful manner. It had mollified Will too, at first, blaming the extreme circumstances for the alarm bells at the back of his mind. Doctor Lecter is a criminal, obviously, otherwise he wouldn’t be here in the first place, but there is more to it than that.

Will sees it now, because of that smile in his eyes, sincere like an icy shower or a stab wound. Seeing, it, the contrast with Hannibal’s usual smirks and gestures was nearly comical. It’s an act. His mind holds vaults, and his manner is layers and layers of refined cloth, stitched together just so that they create the illusion that they’re all there is to the man.

Will wonders suddenly if the Hannibal Lecter of the outside world would have worn expensive three-piece suits, handmade by a tailor with very careful instructions. Then he lets the pendulum swing back, forth, and back again, and he doesn’t have to wonder anymore. 

I walk through life surrounded by beings who look at me and see me as their equal. Elevated, but ultimately of the same flesh and blood. I look back and find them lesser, ugly in their rudeness and tastelessness, worth no better than the treatment they reserve for their cattle. I have very seldom found anyone worth my attention, all who don’t, serve me no other purpose than what I can make of them in my design, what I can elevate them to.

I have killed multiple times, but it is not the reason I’ve been imprisoned, I’m far too meticulous for that. I can survive captivity, I have known hardship before, but I value my freedom, and will be free again soon. I will find my way out. I have found my way out, I am biding my time. It is time for my plan to be set in motion. This is my design.

..  
When Will eyes fly open, the cell is completely dark, and Lecter has left his desk, presumably to sleep in the bed below. He has no idea how much time has passed in the meantime, but it appears to be quite some hours into the night. His heart is pounding, his head spinning with questions. After laying wide awake for some time, he decides to take a gamble.

“You have a plan.” It comes out clear and confident, Will is satisfied to note. There is a pause, and it seems like no reply is coming. For god’s sake, the man is probably asleep. 

Then, without any discernible sound of rustling sheets or tired sighs, a pensive “Yes.”

Will can hear his heart beating, and suddenly knows without a doubt that the other man can hear it too. A few beats pass. “Will I be privy to it?”

“You will play a part in it”

“Will you tell me about it, then?”

“I might,” the voice from below sounds amused now.

“Maybe I don’t want to play along.” Some silence again. Will thinks he might have offended the man, and pretends he doesn’t care. Then, Hannibal Lecter utters a very soft chuckle. “You will.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm off to Florence on a holiday of 3 weeks so I won't have a lot of time to update, but I'll definitely be writing and I'm really looking forward to getting on with this. Up for next chapter is Hannibal's Theremin!   
> Hope you all enjoyed this chapter, thank you so much to everyone who read, left kudos, and commented on last chapter, it means a lot to me and motivates me a lot to keep writing!


	3. Rêver du musique

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The prisoners are allowed an unexpected privilege..

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Long time no see! I'm back home from my holiday so hopefully the next chapter comes along more rapidly. I hope you all like this one!

In the next days Will settles into the routine. They go to breakfast, they go off to do labour, lunch, more labour, dinner, they meet back in their cell, Lecter reads or writes, Will sits or thinks or dreams, they go to sleep. It’s dull, but peaceful, and Will can’t help but feel comforted by the structure and apparent safety of it.

Obviously ‘apparent’ being the key word there. 

It takes three days for the first fight to break out, though calling it a fight is generous. One of the new guys, Will doesn’t know his name but recognises him from the journey in, a slight guy, shifty, quiet. Sees himself as powerful, Will surmised, when he accidentally looked the guy in the eyes a few microseconds too long over breakfast. A clever intellectual with peculiar tastes in a world of people who don’t understand. A bullied kid with an overly inflated sense of self, in for possession and distribution of child porn. Will averted his eyes quickly.

Anyway Will isn’t the only one who could tell what that guy was about apparently, because that afternoon after lunch, on their way back to laundry, three longtime inmates jump him. They get him for a good fifteen minutes before the alarm goes off, everyone is sent to their cells and all four inmates are thrown in solitary.

These kind of incidents seem to happen a lot the first few weeks, most actually flying under the radar of the guards, but still they end up back in their cells in the middle of the day some three days a week in the month or so after Will’s arrival, mostly due to fights and beatings, but there’s also no less than two suicides. 

Despite all this ruckus, Will is doing pretty well at keeping his head down. For obvious reasons he’s always been good at estimating what reaction others want from him, but wasn’t good at nor wanted to be good at giving that reaction. In prison however, his empathy helps him steer clear of the worst dangers, while his rough edge had already made clear he wasn’t a pushover. He can’t help but feel like there’s something more to it than that though. It almost feels like the others are scared of something around him, but it’s subtle enough that he can’t quite put his finger on what it is.

Zeller doesn’t seem to be too bothered. He seems to have decided that Will is clearly antisocial and weird, but harmless and friendly enough to hang out with. Will has never really been one for friends, but he finds himself enjoying the casual companionship of Zeller’s chatter full of gentle complaint and sharp humour. 

Zeller doesn’t seem to mind that Will’s feedback is mostly hums, chuckles, and friendly eyerolls, but sometimes Will is surprised to find himself giving his own commentary on their new lives in incarceration, and occasionally even the odd comment about life from before, his dogs, his best friend, Bev, and he even mentions his old job once. He immediately regrets this, as he’d been working hard to avoid any suspicion of his previous ties with the FBI, because no matter how violently torn and shredded these ties were, pigs are pigs in jail. Zeller doesn’t seem to plan on making a point of it though, he just gives a smile and nod, as if he appreciates that Will shared something personal, and then goes on to lament the fact that cigarette rations are only three times thirty a week, and that’s that.

Will wonders what it says about him that he’s more social in jail than he has ever been before.There’s only Beverly at home, even before everything started happening he didn’t have any other friends than her. Quite miraculously Bev stuck around. She knew better than anyone how bad he’d been doing and how much Matthew had had him worked up, he had been going quite insane with it, and Bev hadn’t blamed him at all. The judge thought quite differently about that, obviously. And Bev doesn’t know about the other thing, of course. But then again, neither does anyone else.

In jail though, there’s Zeller, and there’s also the woman who runs the shop, Margot. She’s one of two women inside the prison, the other is one of the three doctors who patch up all those people from all those fights, a full time job. She’s not what Will expected to find in jail, she’s graceful and small and pretty, but he doesn’t need to look at her for long to tell why they let her into a men’s prison regardless. She’s quite terrifying. A sharpness to her glance, something in her meticulous composure. A cool intelligence radiates from her, engage her and you will be judged.

Will likes her immensely. She seems to like him too.

And then there’s Hannibal Lecter. It doesn’t feel quite right to think of him as a friend, but there’s a comfort in their silence now. They greet each other politely, and Lecter goes to mind his own business, while Will alternates between being absorbed by his thoughts and being absorbed by his thoughts about Lecter. Sometimes Lecter sends him a private smile that confuses and excites Will.

In the second week the routine is disturbed by the sound of a bell. It’s 4 PM, and Will and Lecter are both in their cell. Will looks up, unsure of what’s going on, in time to see Lecter get up from his desk to retrieve a strange rectangular box-shaped object from underneath his bed. 

“What’s going on?” asks Will. 

“Music hour.” responds the man, sounding quite pleased. He adjusts some pins and buttons on the strange object. Will is still rather confused when from a few cells down the hall the shrill cry of a saxophone starts up, and seconds later from two cells on, Zeller’s cell, a violin begins a dramatic sweep.

It’s quite a surrealist experience, these cold dark cells with cold dark men, now filled with the universal language of sound. Will still has no fucking clue what his cellmate is doing though, which apparently is easy to read on his face, because Hannibal crinkles his eyes at him and says, “It’s a Theremin. Quite uncharacteristically civilised of this prison to allow us this, don’t you think?” 

“Yeah uhh.. Quite.”

Lecter smiles at him, and settles down behind the Theremin. An eerie wail fills the cell. It’s a penetrating, ghostly sound, and it takes Will a couple of seconds to let his ears adjust to it. The melody is strange and haunting, and he finds himself getting carried away, closes his eyes and sees skies of an icy blue and dark forests filled with snow, beauty and loneliness. It’s lovely, it’s horrifying. When he opens his eyes he feels tears pricking at the corners. He’s stopped hearing the other instruments, surely it must be a cacophony out there, but there’s only the silent song of the Theremin in his head. 

An hour flies by, while Lecter seems to be completely absorbed by the music, and Will completely absorbed by the melody and the man who moves his hands through the air, coaxing the magical instrument into action. 

 

The bell startles Will out of his reverie. Lecter merely finishes his final tone, and then carefully tucks the Theremin back in its place below the bed. 

Quickly Will fights for control over his facial expression. He has no idea why the music affected him so strongly, but he does know that he doesn’t want Lecter to see his face vulnerable and open. The man in question straightens himself, and turns towards Will, looking pensive. Will sighs audibly, and then tries to fight down the blush threatening to heat his cheeks. He looks to an imaginary point on the wall over Lecter’s shoulder. Then Lecter leans forward, and Will’s eyes fly to him. The man reaches out, and with a careful thumb, wipes away a treacherous stray tear.

Then Lecter turns away to sit at the desk, and Will is left alone with his thoughts.

…

Zeller is even more chipper than usual at breakfast. He looks bashfully smug about something, but he’s not talking about it, and Will isn’t the type of person to ask, instead letting him go on about nothing at all. 

At some point he starts about yesterday’s musical escapades. 

“Yeah, before I know what’s happening, my cellie picks up this old violin and starts playing like he’s fucking Paganini or some shit.”

Will smirks at his bowl of drab. He sounds more impressed to the point of reverence than the mocking disdain he’s clearly going for, which is almost cute, insofar as an adult man in a prison can be that. 

“Yeah, crazy,” answers Will, “Lecter apparently plays the Theremin like a fucking magician, not that I have any idea what the fuck a Theremin is.”

Zeller huffs and smiles. The men share a moment of quiet; the shared thought of how beautifully incongruous with the rest of prison life the moment had been sits comfortably between them, unacknowledged and not needing to be spoken. 

Will finds his thoughts wandering back to being there in that cell with Hannibal, music pouring through every fiber of his being. Thinking of Lecter comes with a sense of anticipation now; anticipation of a feeling of dread, anticipation of a feeling that Will violently doesn’t want to describe as excitement, anticipation of that some day soon, he’ll be made privy to the doctor’s plans.

It’s not that the prison is the worst place in the world for him. It’s not that he really has anywhere to go on the outside. It’s not even that he fully thinks that Hannibal actually plans to get out, let alone take Will with them. There’s just something about him that generates an inexplicable pull about the man, something that makes Will want to follow him anywhere to find out just what it is.

…

The music hour quickly becomes a part of the routine. They’re usually three times a week for an hour, and don’t get any less strange for their regularity. Will finds himself looking forward to the strange and beautiful suspensions in time.

The fourth musical session, Hannibal’s music is quite different in tone from previous pieces. The compositions always fit the hour seamlessly, and somehow Will knows they must be composed by Hannibal himself. They’re dark and mysterious, graceful and suited perfectly for the eerie sound of the Theremin.

Will is more enraptured by this afternoon’s composition than any of the ones before. It has dark tones that remind him of a forest at night, while the melody clatters like a silver-blue river. The occasional syncope is unexpected, enhancing the melody by keeping the listener engaged by the hint of unpredictability. A shadow lurks behind the night trees; the music swells, and a large creature steps out from behind. Pacing calmly to the center of attention, Will notices the large stag-likespectral conjuration of music is staring intently at him, before looking past him, and walking further, back into the thicket of trees. The beast’s flank is covered in blood. It glistens black in the moonlight.

The music comes to an end, and Will opens his eyes, not remembering when he closed them. He’s annoyed but not surprised to find tears caught in his eyelashes once again. Then he looks at Lecter, who regards him once again, seemingly in deep thought. Then the man apparently comes to a decision and reaches behind the small line of books on the desk, to retrieve a small metal spoon. He gets up and walks over to Will, and hands it to him.

Will stares back at him dumbfoundedly, but takes the spoon, sliding it under his pillow. It looks like that’s that for the interaction, because Hannibal sits back down at the desk, his back to an incredibly confused Will.

“What’s uhh- what’s this for?”

Lecter turns in his chair and squints up at him. “See that air vent underneath the sink? The metal grill is not attached very securely. Next music hour, I’d like you to widen the vent.”

“With a.. spoon?”

“Yes. I’m afraid it’s the best I can do, my opportunities are limited because I haven’t been granted labour privileges. Speaking of, it would indeed speed up the process greatly if you found an opportunity to palm something a bit sharper from the shop, but of course, I expect you to be patient enough to wait with that until you get away with it, because it obviously wouldn’t do if they started thoroughly searching our cell, would it?”

“Ah.. all right,” answers Will. The labouring privileges is news to him, though it does explain why Lecter is consistently present in the cell when Will returns from the shop.

Lecter, meanwhile, shoots him another one of those eyes-only smiles, which invoke in Will an inconvenient urge to either flee away or to flee toward and kiss him until the smile reaches his lips. Not sure where that came from. When Will has gained control over that treacherous pinkness of his cheeks, the other man has already turned back to work.

That night, Will dreams of an ink-black stag.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Can you all believe music hour was an actual thing in Alcatraz prison?? I'm staying as faithful as possible to the process of the prison break, though I'm changing a lot to fit Hannigram, the show, and my own lazy ass- the rules there were assuredly more strict than depicted here. But music hour was an actual thing there!


End file.
